


You Can (Not) Change

by LotusRox



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, M/M, Mentions of World War I, Post-Canon, Traitor!Theseus, once again Theseus and Graves go way back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 15:56:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14814396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LotusRox/pseuds/LotusRox
Summary: Percival can’t tell what the trenches had done to them. They had had each other back then, and if the booming of artillery had made Theseus crack, then he had twisted right by his side.War might not change a soldier, but a broken heart might push a man over the edge.-----Or, the one where Graves and Theseus get to talk.





	You Can (Not) Change

This wasn’t the way he expected being back in France, Percival thinks. Nor the reunion he had been hoping for.

 

"Theseus!", he screams across the battlefield, and the redhead turns, pale as the ghost he's currently staring at.

 

A heavy fog of silence only they can hear settles across this No Man’s Land.

 

People say, war changes a soldier. Looking at his enemy, Percival knows better. Too composed. Too _square_ in his fine suit and short hair - there's no trace of the lover he abandoned an ocean away.

 

He can’t tell what the trenches had done to them. They had had each other back then, and if the booming of artillery had made Theseus crack, then he had twisted right by his side.

 

War might not change a soldier, but a broken heart might push a man over the edge.

 

Something in Theseus' face shifts. His snarling cracks across the distance like a whip.

 

“Go away, Graves! You're dead!", and he raises his hand, his wand. The cemetery ground shakes and Percival knows what's coming.

 

Theseus always had a knack for breathing life into others.

 

Percival tries to reach out for him with mind and magic, but there's barriers he can't Apparate through and so he _runs._ He opens his wrist without missing a step to feed his own, Gondolphus’ blood magic easy as breathing after an entire year of pursuing Gellert Grindelwald. It’s enough to bounce off the curses Theseus starts, desperately, flinging at him.

 

He knows he won't cast the Green One. Maybe.

 

He's only sure when he tackles the Brit into the ground, disturbed by mud and earthquakes, and the struggle of an army of _Inferi_ trapped before Awakening.

 

 _‘Did I do this?’,_ but there are rhythms that don’t leave a space to think, made for instinct and reflexes. Theseus punches him square on the nose, and past the blinding, cracking pain, he tastes salt and rust.

 

"The fuck are you thinking", he spits. "Rushing in like a bloody knight", and he aims again but Percival is faster, he twists like a panther, disarms the man and holds his wrists.

 

Should've expected the headbutt. Prim and proper Senior Auror, Theseus Scamander had been a brawler ten years ago, wire-thin and brimming with the fury of shell-shock.

 

 _"You. Can't. Change. Anything"_ , and past his own nausea, Percival thinks, indeed not much has changed. He knows Theseus didn’t betray him last December, he knows it’s the Brit the one doing his best to keep under control the damage of his master’s schemes.

 

He can be saved, he can, he'll vouch for him even if it costs him all he has built since he left his lover for MACUSA's leash. His certainty remains even when flat on his back and pinned in place by venom-green. He reaches and touches Theseus' cheek.

 

Theseus punches him again with a growl. That, Percival does expect.

 

There’s a tug, a compression, a cracking sound. Theseus Apparated them away, and _that_ , that is unexpected.

 

The place they land at smells like dust and stone and rotting hay. They’re far away enough from Paris it’s raining, and the high, tiny windows on the wall have no glass panes.

 

A flash of lightning rattles his bones, throwing shadows across the room, and Percival’s memory catches fire along with the following thunder - he recognizes this abandoned mill, from a lifetime ago.

 

They’re in the outskirts of fucking _Somme._

 

"He told me you were dead", the other man says, panting, sitting up. A snap of his fingers makes the old hearth by the side come alive, another one dulls down the outside sounds so there’s some quiet.

 

"Theseus..." And Percival won't ask when he learnt to do this wandless. He has a feeling he knows who taught him.

 

"Don't fucking flatter yourself, Graves", he warns. "I'm not a turncoat because of _you."_

 

There's not a hint of hesitation on his face. Somewhere along the line, Percival thinks, desperate, he must've learnt to lie as well.

 

"I wouldn't dare presume", he offers in the end. He's glad his magic is back to normal, one year after his capture. He wills an _Episkey_ on his broken nose, another on his wrist before he bleeds out, and on Theseus' bruises too. "I just want to know _why."_

 

For a moment, Theseus says nothing and there it is: The vulnerability that had lured Graves in as much as his laughter had done, so many years ago.

 

"Sit up", the Brit replies, and it's gone then, buried under twenty inches of winter - but not entirely. "Make yourself comfortable."

 

Somewhere in Montmartre, Newt Scamander, Tina Goldstein, and Credence Barebone are trying their hand at stopping the dark wizard who had almost, almost ruined all of their lives. Duty and long-held lust for revenge have Percival aching to go fight by their side. In a way, cowardice does, too.

  
It’s going to be a long night.

 

He isn’t dead yet.

 

“Talk to me”, Percival asks quietly, and hopes for the dawn.

**Author's Note:**

> If this looks A LOT like [Should've Known From My First Breath](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13983849), it's because it's a mirror piece of sorts. Which in turn is because it's been weeks and I'm still stupidly salty about a lot of things in that trailer for Fantabi2 :'D I'm sorry.
> 
> Let me know if you liked it! Either here or at [my Tumblr](fractalspaces.tumblr.com).


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